


To Render Constant

by icarus_chained



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Defiance, Gen, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Partnership, Possessive Behavior, Promises, Protectiveness, Rescue, triumph
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 10:18:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10215695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: Their new existence, though exempt from many concerns, is not entirely without its own perils. There are other things existing in possibility space, not all of them friendly. If there is one thing Rosalind and Robert Lutece have rendered constant, however, it is that it is never,everwise to separate them without their consent. Not for anything.





	

**Author's Note:**

> While I'm in the mood for them, something a little Lovecraftian on the edges of possibilty?

It had taken them some time to realise that their efforts, their thought experiment, had not gone entirely unobserved. Though, truth be told, it was more that it had taken them some time to realise there was anything to do the observing.

And _thing_ was, indeed, the operative word here. Most decidedly. Whatever it was that observed them, if it had ever been human at all, certainly wasn't any longer.

They hadn't initially been overly concerned by its appearance. _Interested_ , yes, scientifically intrigued, but not concerned. 'Threat' no longer had the same meaning to them as it once had, and in their arrogance perhaps they had thought it no longer had any meaning at all. Among the admittedly many mistakes they had made in their entangled existence, that probably had to rank among the greater.

As it turned out, there were several things out here with the potential to be a threat to them. Things, too, with the _will_. They were discovering that very rapidly and insistently indeed.

It was Robert who noticed the thing first. The creature, following them, though that had taken them a universe or two to understand. They hadn't realised it was a single creature at first, thinking it merely several iterations contained within discrete universes. It was only when Robert realised that it was moving _with_ them, noticing it traversing the spaces between realities as easily as they did, that they realised how wrong they were.

The creature wasn't bound to any universe. It wasn't bound at all. And they, in their infinite wisdom, had managed to draw its attention.

Still, they hadn't been alarmed. Well, Robert perhaps. A little. He did tend to be a something of a worrywart about such things. Nonetheless, curiosity had still ranked higher for both of them in that initial rush of realisation. Curiosity, fascination, the desire to understand a thing as constant and yet unmoored as they were. It had been a frustration, then, to realise that they couldn't quite approach the thing. Not by themselves, not under their own power. Realising itself discovered, it had retreated to the limits of their awareness and then held itself there, stubbornly unreachable despite all their best efforts. 

It had _watched_ their best efforts. Even Rosalind had begun to feel a twinge of alarm at that. It had ... hung there, just on the edges of their existence, moment to moment, and _watched_ them. The way a predator watched something. At that point, they had _both_ begun to feel more than a little alarmed. 

And then, when it had satisfied itself as to their nature and the limits of their reach, _then_ ...

Then the creature had reached out, and _taken_ Robert.

She hadn't understood it at first. She hadn't ... realised what had happened. It was so fast, it was so ... so impossible. One moment he was there at her side, the creature watching them, and the next ... the next he was gone. Not just gone, but _gone_. Beyond her reach. Beyond her _senses_. They had been different, since they'd died. They'd been a part of each other, a part of the same event. She'd felt him. She'd _always_ felt him, with that particular shade of meaning that 'always' carried now. She had never not felt him, not like this, not in this state. It wasn't possible. It _wasn't possible_.

It wasn't possible to go mad either, not really, not as they were now, but in that space and that moment she rather thought she had. Hanging there, existing there, feeling an infinity of possibilities spreading out around her, and no Robert in any of them. She'd gone mad. She must have done. She always had been, in his absence.

She wasn't entirely sure how long she had reeled with it. Not that time had any particular meaning to them, but it was amazing how appalling long it felt without him. Her mind had blanked, struck empty and horrified, for what felt like an endless eternity. 

But then. Then. Something ... came back. Filtered back, from somewhere inside her. Something she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before, not like that, not to that utter, unfathomable extent. She'd felt rage. Utter, overriding, unbearable rage. 

How dare that _thing_ take him from her. How _dare_ it. 

It was intolerable. Unbearable. So she didn't bear it.

He was part of her. Robert. He was her brother, her partner, her self. He was part of her, and he _could not_ be taken from her. That was a constant, not a variable. No force and no creature in any realm of possibility would _ever_ be allowed to change that.

It was odd, perhaps, that mere emotion should so significantly alter her abilities. By rights it should reduce it, blind her to possibility, take away her intellect and leave mere instinct in its place. But perhaps in certain circumstances instinct was all that was required. Perhaps there were times when emotion was as much empowerment as impediment. Perhaps. Or perhaps it was simpler than that. It was, after all, not the first time that she had broken all possible barriers to bring her brother to her. Or her to him, as the case required.

They were bound, to each other if nothing else, two halves of the same coin. It quite simply wasn't within the realm of possibility to keep her from him. There was distance involved in reaching them. Also time. Several universes. Not a single one of them mattered. One moment, she wasn't there. And then, she was.

The creature didn't seem to have expected that. It didn't _like_ it, either. By that point Rosalind really was past caring. One thing and one thing only mattered to her in that place. She fixed her eyes, her _self_ , on Robert, and did not remove them again.

"... That's _mine_ ," she said, with perhaps an unfortunate lack of composure. Robert, ragged and somewhat distressed as he was, looked at her a little askance for it. Though perhaps it was the overt possessive that perturbed him. She would (was going to have) (didn't) ask his forgiveness later. In the moment, she'd had another concern. "That is my _brother_ , and you will _give him back to me_."

"Oh dear," Robert sighed, squirming slightly in the creature's grasp. "I did warn you, you know. I told you my sister was rather stubborn."

Rosalind laughed. A high, somewhat hysterical bark. Robert glanced at her in concern.

The creature ... did not.

" _You_ ," it ... not said. It didn't _say_ it. They didn't _hear_ the words, they _remembered_ them. As though they'd always been there, in their minds, in their memories, a tainted, underlying constant, flavoured with inevitability. It tasted awful. Rosalind despised the sensation immediately. Always had. Always would. Despise, despised, will _always_ despise. "You. Are not. Permitted. You are _not_ permitted."

Rosalind stared at it. In disbelief, largely, and in that vast, quivering anger that had brought her here. She couldn't quite hear her own voice when she spoke. To judge by Robert's expression, though, it had _not_ been a pleasant tone.

"I _don't care_ ," she said. Stepping forward. Stalking forward. The creature stretched above her, vast and impossible and _wrong_ , fundamentally, _elementally_ wrong, and Rosalind truly had cared not the slightest. She was dead and not dead, bodied and not bodied, but in either state and both, in that moment, she had been _angry_. Blindly, unreasoningly angry. God Himself might have offered her chastisement, and she would have spat it back in His face just as readily. "Give him back. _Now_."

The creature ... did something. There. Just there. As she reached for it. It reached back, and it _did something_. She wasn't sure what. Something ... rippled, inside her. Something twisted. She stopped. Couldn't help it. She made a noise, an odd, breathless sort of a thing. Not hurt. Not _quite_ hurt. Something closer to it than anything since they'd died, though.

The thing continued, for an endless moment. And then it stopped. She looked up, from where her attention had fallen to the hands clutched at her midriff, and there ... there was Robert. Standing in front of her, his own hand seizing the creature's limb. His body quivering with a vast, unfathomable rage of his own. A moment before he had been immobilised. Then, he had not.

"How dare you," Robert hissed, as she had when he was taken. "How _dare_ you raise a hand to my sister. Let go of her! Let go of her _right now_."

Oh. Oh. Something had ... had twisted again. Inside her. Not pain. Not this time.

"... You are not permitted," the creature repeated, as if those were the only words within its comprehension. It shook its limb within Robert's grasp, temper and mindless aggravation encompassing them both. "You are not _permitted_."

" _Yes_ ," Rosalind growled impatiently, coming up beside her brother to slide her hand into his. "Yes, you've said. Allow me to reiterate. We do not. _Care_."

"Not in the slightest," Robert agreed, gripping her offered hand fiercely. "We will not be parted, sir. You may be absolutely assured of that." Rosalind nodded emphatically.

"Neither or both," she said. "Never one or the other. You may be _assured_."

And then, while it stared at them, they were there. And then, while it stared at them, they were not.

She fell to shaking the moment they were clear. Well, she never had been overly good at emotion. She trembled, and Robert instantly turned to curl around her. To pull her in, to draw her close, and wrap equally trembling arms around her. Her brother. Her _brother_. Safe beside her once again.

"Neither or both," she whispered savagely, clinging to him. "Neither or _both_. Robert, for heaven's sake, don't ever leave me again."

Robert laughed shakily. "I contest that it wasn't entirely my fault," he said, a little wryly, but conceded nonetheless, and perhaps with no less fervency than her. "Never mind. I promise, Rosalind. Neither or both. I promise."

Alive or not, dead or not, _permitted_ or not, they would never be parted again. Not if they had to remake all of reality to ensure it. They existed now in a realm of infinite possibility, but _that_ , they would ensure, would become constant. Neither or both. Nothing else. Not ever again.

It had been arrogance, to presume that in their new state there could be nothing to threaten them. The height of arrogance, as perhaps were many of their sins. They were scientists, though. They learned from their errors. Some mistakes they would never make again.

And some mistakes, too, their monsters wouldn't either.


End file.
